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I thought this was a very good book, even though he wasn't caught, he did get what he deserved. I also got to see the movie which I think could've been done better. I think it was a little more emotional for me as I have a 13 year old daughter and a 17 year old daughter. Overall, I thought it was a well written book that I would recommend to others.

I have to agree with Mrs. T. I read Lovely Bones after the movie came out (I still have yet to see the movie), and I was absolutely enthralled in the beginning. It was like a rollercoaster ride finding out what was going to happen to the teen. However, midway through, I became bored and irritated with the mother's actions. Being a mother myself, I didn't agree with how she left her children and cheated on her husband. It just didn't jive with what I thought I'd do if I were put in her shoes. And then the creep doesn't even get caught???? If the author wrote this book this way only to evoke controversy, she instead left the reader with a feeling of let down, irritation and boredom.

I read the book before the film and although i did enjoy it, i found it hard to visualise Sebold's vision of the afterlife, too many styles and images were competing in my head to form a solid image so i was left a bit confused by this but i did find the book touching to read and with a very unpleasant villain in the guise of Mr Harvey. Having said all that, it did drag in places and i was left wondering why Susie would spend so many years in limbo just watching her family drift apart instead of moving on. The movie had very strong performances from Saoirse Ronan and Mark Wahlberg but again, the afterlife was a fusion of 70s pop culture and modern ghost story, very obscure, but the movie had a bigger affect on me than the book so i rate it 7.5 out of 10.

I loved the book. Although i can see other peoples point about not being able to see Sebolds visualization of the afterlife, i disagree. It was very refreshing to read a different view on the topic that i've never heard before. What she was saying was that we all make our own afterlives. Everything we love in the world, not counting people, will be in our own secret haven. Nothing painful, scary or that we disagree with. Only anything you've ever wanted. Even when the people did collide, she knew that they were in their own world, and they knew she was in hers. It was a compromise. They could see eachother, the spirits i mean, without being in eachothers worlds. To me, the private worlds seemed like a human's mind. In person we can see eachother, and intertwine, but no one knows whats going on in eachothers minds. Example: Rowling said that she was walking around all day with people, but in her mind she was at Hogwarts. Thats what it reminded me of anyway. As for the question of why she stayed so long, i have so many answers that i can see as probable, but truly we wouldnt know what we would do, unless we were in that instance.

Fairytales are more than true: not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten. -Neil Gaiman

Excellent post laci_baby
It's quite a while since I read this book so I'm a bit rusty on it but I felt it was all about the inability of the deceased to find rest until those left behind had found a way of dealing with her disappearance & picking up the threads of their own lives again ... that awful term 'closure' comes to mind.
I like your idea about everyone having their own heaven but I thought the way that was interpreted in the film was dreadful ... all that Telletubbyland stuff (not my idea of Heaven anyway!).
Unlike StephenKingman I would rate the book way ahead of the film.

I read the book a few months back, when it was nominated for "book of the month" on the forum. I liked it as a whole, even though there were parts that were harder to read, or a bit too boring. It's not the best book I've ever read, but it doesn't have to be, as long as it has some interesting ideas and makes you feel something.
I thought the author's version of heaven was interesting, or should I say limbo, since Susie stays there while she "works out" what happened to her and letting go of her family - I can't imagine staying there for all eternity (or maybe we do need an eternity to get over this life)
I thought the perspective from which the story was being told (the dead one) was interesting and unexpected, and it gave the storytelling a calmer tone.
I liked the characters, I thought that they were all credible enough, even the mother that leaves her family because she can't stand to be reminded of the tragedy or to see herself in that life...
My favorite ones were the grandma and the father (I was very touched by the way she portrayed him, the pain a grown man goes through when somebody he loves and is in his care gets hert, and how he KNEW that Harvey did it)
I can't say the ending disappointed me, I was very surprised though, and I really liked IMMA's interpretation of the book's ending, I think maybe that's what the author had in mind.
I'll have to watch the movie now, and I'm glad I read the book first, otherwise the movie would interfere with the "movie" I make in my head when I'm reading it.

Although i did enjoy the movie more than the book due to the exceptional performance by Saoirse Ronan who fleshes out Susie Salmon stronger than the book character, as well as Stanley Gucci as the creepy Mr Harvey. Those 2 performances alone made me forget about the disjointed filming style of Peter Jackson with regards the afterlife and limbo- very visually impressive but at odds with the story. I read the book first then saw the movie and was impressed by it.

Getting back to the book, yes it was original and ground breaking to tell the story from the perspective of the dead main character but was Susie destined to watch her family for decades until some justice was served or was it not more plausible that she move into the light and be there for her heartbroken family when they move on-the constant observation for years after her murder felt very unrealistic to me.

StephenKingman wrote:Although i did enjoy the movie more than the book due to the exceptional performance by Saoirse Ronan who fleshes out Susie Salmon stronger than the book character, as well as Stanley Gucci as the creepy Mr Harvey. Those 2 performances alone made me forget about the disjointed filming style of Peter Jackson with regards the afterlife and limbo- very visually impressive but at odds with the story. I read the book first then saw the movie and was impressed by it.

Getting back to the book, yes it was original and ground breaking to tell the story from the perspective of the dead main character but was Susie destined to watch her family for decades until some justice was served or was it not more plausible that she move into the light and be there for her heartbroken family when they move on-the constant observation for years after her murder felt very unrealistic to me.

But do you not think the human concept of Time may not apply in Heaven
or Limbo? I think there is something in the Bible somewhere along the lines that the Almighty's time is not the same as human time ... sorry my Biblical knowledge isn't up to a proper quote.

Fran wrote: But do you not think the human concept of Time may not apply in Heaven or Limbo? I think there is something in the Bible somewhere along the lines that the Almighty's time is not the same as human time ... sorry my Biblical knowledge isn't up to a proper quote..

Thats a good point Fran, and i do believe it is in there, but i wouldnt be able to name where.

Agree with StephenKingman on the movie though. Stanley Gucci was amazing as Harvey. I was pretty skeptical about Gucci at first, taking on that role, but he did better than i thought. I can still see your point about the constant years after the murder, i was dissapointed by that aspect, but all in all i loved it.

Fairytales are more than true: not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten. -Neil Gaiman

StephenKingman wrote:Although i did enjoy the movie more than the book due to the exceptional performance by Saoirse Ronan who fleshes out Susie Salmon stronger than the book character, as well as Stanley Gucci as the creepy Mr Harvey. Those 2 performances alone made me forget about the disjointed filming style of Peter Jackson with regards the afterlife and limbo- very visually impressive but at odds with the story. I read the book first then saw the movie and was impressed by it.

Getting back to the book, yes it was original and ground breaking to tell the story from the perspective of the dead main character but was Susie destined to watch her family for decades until some justice was served or was it not more plausible that she move into the light and be there for her heartbroken family when they move on-the constant observation for years after her murder felt very unrealistic to me.

To me, I think she lingered for so long watching her family because she, Susie, wasn't ready to let go of them and of life as she knew it. I don't know if she did that because she was waiting for justice. Maybe that's way it ended the way it did, with her choosing to be with the boy rather than to help bring Harvey to justice

I think Sebold has opted out of any traditional view of heaven--is not interested in aligning with any particular concept of the afterlife. She needs a narrator, and why not Susie, who is central in death so much more than perhaps in life to the lives & thoughts of so many who knew or loved her. After all, Susie is indeed the "bones" holding so many together after her death at least in their trying or failing to grasp something out of this tragedy that will make it meaningful, so strongly has it affected/changed/damaged their own lives. Really in its kind of refreshing simplicity this idea works so well I just want to enjoy it rather than analyze it as at first I started to do.
So much can be said about this book; my instinct (however limited) tells me this is not "serious" literature in league with classics--written as it is with pop themes--bones, forensics, ghosts, sex crime, murder etc. But so enjoyable even though so very sad. Nice read.

What interested me in this book was that the author, created a character, who was human and had her murdered. The murdered character, Susie Salmon, as a spirit or ghost, then tells the story of her life and murder, as if she was still alive, going through the motions.

I didn't view the book as morbid or concerned with how she died but rather that, she had missed out on life's experiences.

I didn't like the concept of heaven, or limbo or wherever it is Susie is supposed to be. It seemed boring rather than anything else.

I thought the last part of the book was just silly. Not only did I question whether or not Susie would have wanted to spend her time that way but I really doubt that any teenage boy is going to be still in love with a girl he shared one kiss with several years before.

It all just seemed to come out a bit too easily in the end. The mother gets to come back and just be accepted. The sister gets to marry her first love. Susie gets to have sex and Ruth gets to spend her life communing with dead women. Too simple for my liking.

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